With iOS 6, Apple Is Now Requiring Permission For Apps To Access Personal Data

Beginning with iOS 6, Apple will now prompt you before allowing any app to access your personal data. This includes not only your contacts, but calendars, reminders, and photo library as well. In addition to these dialog boxes, iOS 6 also includes a new privacy section where you can manage fine-grain controls over which apps can use your data.

This new privacy section allows you to revoke any app access to your information at any time, should you feel the need. In addition, Apple allows you to control which apps and services can use your location, in greater detail than ever before.

This is very similar to what Apple is doing in Mountain Lion, where users are also prompted any time an app wishes to use personal data. This, along with Gatekeeper, also debuting in Mountain Lion, paints a very clear picture of how seriously Apple is beginning to take privacy.

Whether these are steps Apple wants to take, or whether they are being pressured into increasing privacy and security measures is yet unknown. Just recently, Apple came under fire after Path, a social networking application, was revealed to be uploading the entire contents of users’ Address Books to its servers.

As both the iPhone and iPad grow in popularity, it’s clear that Apple will need to continue to make sure the privacy of users is protected to the greatest extent possible, due to the increased amount of pressure Apple is being put under.

Apple obviously realizes this too, and they are continuing to provide more privacy and security options in every release of not only iOS, but OS X as well. This is a big change from only a few years ago, when Apple first added basic anti-malware to OS X, 8 years late.